Title: Cosmic rays at Earth
Abstract: The lecture "Cosmic Ray at Earth" presents a brief overview of the history of cosmic ray discovery and study. Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 through the effect of atmospheric ionization and soon became an important object and subject of intense research. The modern paradigm of what cosmic rays are, where and how they are formed and what effects they cause on Earth will be presented. The following topics will be touched on: cosmic ray acceleration, energy spectrum and composition; measurements of cosmic rays; Heliospheric modulation; solar energetic particles including extreme solar events; terrestrial effect of cosmic rays.
"Why should we care about how fast spiral arms and bars of galaxies rotate? "
Title: Why should we care about how fast spiral arms and bars of galaxies rotate?
- Understanding the significance of determining their pattern speeds.
Abstract: TBA
"Nonlinear black hole spectroscopy"
Title: The structured heliosphere – solar wind, transient disturbances and their solar origin
Abstract: The Sun's most dynamic events manifest as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and flares. CMEs consist of enormous clouds of magnetized plasma hurtling at speeds of up to a few thousand kilometers per second. These can traverse the distance between the Sun and Earth in less than a day, potentially triggering significant geomagnetic disturbances on our planet, known as Space Weather. CMEs travel within the ambient flow of solar wind, which itself is structured by the interaction between slow and fast wind streams. These different solar wind streams, generating stream interaction regions (SIRs), can induce geomagnetic storms, often recurring periodically. With the recent period of high solar activity, particularly evident during the "May 2024" solar storms, there is an increased interest in better understanding the impact of solar events on Earth. Understanding the underlying physical processes governing the interplay between solar wind flow and CMEs is crucial for refining models and enhancing the reliability of forecasts. The talk will cover the phenomena of CMEs and flares, their propagation through interplanetary space in relation to the background solar wind.
When they are in orbit with a companion star, they can capture the outer layers of the latter. This new matter can burn unstably on the surface of the neutron stars and explode in bright X-ray flashes called the type I bursts.
In this talk I will show how modelling the magnetohydrodynamics of the flame during the type I bursts gives us a window on properties of the neutron stars such as their magnetic fields or their interior physics, which has also connections to gravitational waves.
I will also discuss how these simulations can give us information relevant to nuclear physics, related both to astronomical events such as binary mergers and experiments on earth.
Title: Measuring Jupiter’s extreme particle radiation environment: challenges and solutions
Abstract: Jupiter is a planet of superlatives and its magnetosphere is no exception to that. The planet’s giant magnetosphere, generated by a magnetic field 20000 times stronger than that of the Earth, acts also as a very powerful charged particle accelerator, giving rise to the most hazardous particle radiation environment in our solar system: Jupiter’s radiation belts. The radiation belts of Jupiter trap a diverse mix of particles species (electrons, protons, heavy ions) with energies characteristic for galactic cosmic rays, albeit at intensities many orders of magnitude higher than the latter. How these radiation belts end up being so energetic and so intense is a decades-long reigning mystery, in part because their measurement presents us with numerous scientific and technical challenges. What our existing measurements indicate is that the fundamental space physics processes and their synergies that operate at Jupiter’s belts, such as particle acceleration, transport and loss, are unparalleled in our solar system and could offer us insights into the dynamics of astrophysical, extrasolar magnetospheres that we can only probe remotely. In this presentation I will briefly introduce what makes Jupiter’s radiation belts so unique and the current state of our understanding, before focusing on how future missions, instruments and measurement strategies will help us probe this unique system in depth.